perlmeditation merlyn I was answering a question posted to one of the myriad of Perl mailing lists a few moments ago, and was reminded of this interesting point. <p> We're all told (or do the telling of) "use strict always!" and "barewords are bad". But the motivation for why barewords are bad might not be clear. <p> Back in the Perl3 days, when barewords were added, I came up with this interesting little puzzle. See if you can solve it. Don't post your answers without hiding them somehow (readmore, black-on-black, or some other way). <h2>The Puzzle</h2> Presuming no "use strict" (or the days of Perl3), why does: <code> @days = (sun,mon,tue,wed,thu,fri,sat); </code> work OK, but <code> @months = (jan,feb,mar,apr,may,jun,jul,aug,sep,oct,nov,dec); </code> fail? <!-- Node text goes above. Div tags should contain sig only --> <div class="pmsig"><div class="pmsig-9073"> <p>-- [http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/|Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker] <br> Be sure to read [id://205373|my standard disclaimer] if this is a reply.</p> </div></div>